In 1904, well before commercially viable technology for mobile radio was in place, American inventor

and self-described "Father of Radio" Lee de Forest did some demonstration around a car radio at
the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.[1]
Around 1920, vacuum tube technology had matured to the point where the availability of radio
receivers made radio broadcasting viable.[2] A technical challenge was that the vacuum tubes in the
radio receivers required 50 to 250 volt direct current but car batteries ran at 6V. Voltage was stepped
up with a vibrator that provided a pulsating DC which could be converted to a higher voltage with
a transformer, rectified, and filtered to create higher-voltage DC.
In 1924, Kelly's Motors in NSW, Australia, installed its first car radio.[3][4][5]
In 1930, the American Galvin Manufacturing Corporation marketed a Motorola branded radio
receiver for $130.[6] It was expensive: the contemporary Ford Model A cost $540. A Plymouth sedan,
"wired for Philco Transistone radio without extra cost," is advertised in Ladies' Home Journal in
1931. In 1932 in Germany the Blaupunkt AS 5 medium wave and longwave radio was marketed for
465 Reichsmark, about one third of the price of a small car. Because it took nearly 10 litres of space,
it could not be located near the driver, and was operated via a steering wheel remote control.[7] In
1933 Crossley Motors offer a factory fitted car radio.[8] By the late 1930s, push button AM radios
were considered a standard feature. In 1946 there were an estimated 9 million AM car radios in
use.[9]
An FM receiver was offered by Blaupunkt in 1952. In 1953, Becker introduced the AM/FM Becker
Mexico with a Variometer tuner, basically a station-search or scan function.[10]
In April 1955, the Chrysler Corporation had announced that it was offering a Mopar model 914HR
branded Philco all transistor car radio,[11] as a $150 option for its 1956 Chrysler and Imperial car
models. Chrysler Corporation had decided to discontinue its all transistor car radio option at the end
of 1956, due to it being too expensive, and replaced it with a cheaper hybrid (transistors and low
voltage vacuum tubes) car radio for its new 1957 car models.[12] In 1963 Becker introduced the Monte
Carlo, a tubeless solid state radio, with no vacuum tubes.[10]